I love the idea of the Magic Weekend, been to all 4 now, but preferred Cardiff. What about moving it to the bank holiday at the end of May. The soccer season would be finished and maybe some financially strapped team would be grateful of the cash. A Birmingham team? Birmingham could cope with the amount of spectators and a smaller venue would be better.

Yeah I saw that, when we were at Brentford we had to be away from the ground for 6 weeks to allow the pitch to be maintained and that wasn't the bowling green surfaces the Premier League now demand, there is what around 9 to 10 weeks between the end of one season and the start of another that doesn't leave a huge window for us.

I'm not even sure it is what damage that does happen, it is what could happen and who gets the bullet for it later on. Add in the whinging from the footy fans and media there aren't many stadium managers who'd take a risk.

Last time Newcastle ripped up their pitch it cost £500k and took six weeks to complete, it wasn't any good for the first year and a bit until it got a decent year of bedding in and growing, the cr@p with the Wembley pitch only magnifies any doubts clubs would have.

I'd love to see an event like this at Newcastle BTW, a great ground and a fantastic city. I can't see it happening though.

How about the Ricoh Arena , Coventry?

It holds 32,500 and they’re still only a Championship side. It’s easy to get to, being right next to the M6, and there’s lot’s of places to see nearby – Warwick Castle and Stratford Upon Avon etc.

It’s a lovely stadium and the RFL will have no problem selling it out. It’s near the heartlands as well as in a development area. It would look great packed out on T.V.

Yup but it is way way out of the centre and a few here have been moaning about a 2mile walk from city centre to the ground.

It can only be Murrayfield or Cardiff IMO, if not them then not at all. Move the CC back to May.

Fair enough but...

For those that don’t like traveling there’s a hotel built into the ground.
[urlhttp://www.71rooms.com/[/url
For the rest you can get a taxi for about £12.00 from the city. There’s a bus that goes every 10 minutes to the stadium from the railway station. There are lots of park and ride services at a cost of £5 - £7 too. So there shouldn’t be any problem getting to the ground.
There’ll always be a reason to dismiss any venue as suitable. I’m not saying it’s perfect and, as my team won’t be there anyway, it makes no odds to me where they hold it next year, but it looks like a decent option to me; not perfect, but nowhere is it seems.

The reason for a non double header for CC semi is the fact that BBC want a game on Saturday and a game on Sunday.

I always thought of balmy as meaning pleasantly cool.

Like a light breeze on a fine evening.

Or a soothing ointment on a nasty case of athletes foot.

Typical glass half empty RL fans - not sold out so let's move to a smaller stadium, 200 miles is too far to travel? good job we're not in North America - it's a fantastic idea that the RFU would copy in an instant if we dropped it so let's look at this another way, how do attract another 15 - 20 thousand fans to go? that's what we should be looking at.
If some people on this site had been round in 1895 the Northern Union would probably have been doomed after 2-3 years!!

...based on what did happen their clubs would have converted to association football....

Mild and pleasant

It's a fair point, but back to my earlier post, later in the year is the key. It's just too cold in Edinburgh at the beginning of May to be sat there for 4 games.
We did, because we're die hards, but even learning from last year and taking loads of extra layers we were still frozen stiff by the end of Saturday.

Loads of people we spoke to came to their team's game and watched the rest in the pub where it was warm. So at any one time there were probably only half of the ticket holders in the ground. 13000 in a ground that size will always struggle to generate atmosphere.

There were folks here last year complaining of getting sunburn


A few years of "summer" rugby has turned us soft, layer up and you are fine, wander round in shirt sleeves and you be cold no matter where you are in the country at this time of year and as tb posted on another thread they compared well with Barca.

Personally Im not fussed if it's scraped or not.

I can guarantee that anyone complaining of sunburn wasn't in the west stand in the shade all day. We were layered up. Point is, Edinburgh has a markedly low mean temperature at this time of year compared to other places. I certainly don't remember the Millenium stadium being that cold.

Apologies if someone has suggested similar but...........

Take it down to London (i know, i know), maybe Emirates/Upton Park, and give the myriad of schools that play RL in the London area and the amateur clubs some cut-price tickets, and the chance to see the top players up close. The main concentration of the London amateur scene seems to be north/east of the London area, so take it there for a year at least, and see what happens.

It has a lower mean temperature most of the year mate






Cause the roof was shut?

Wembley.

And have a Sevens comp for the 11 Championship + 5 Championship 1 teams to fill in gaps between SL games and also tempt a few thousand more fans to the event.

I'd love to see Oldham and Swinton play there at long last and I can't imagine there'd be any problem with the pitch holding up...

Southampton - St Mary's - 32,000
Newcastle - St James Park - 52,000
Sheffield - Bramall Lane - 32,00

Now all three of these grounds should be fine with RL playing in them. With the eagles playing at bramall lane and St Marys and James both being grounds for the RU world cup in 2015 I don't see a problem with any. All great cities with loads to do, loads of places to stop & drink but also there grounds are slap bang in the city centres!

Also Bristol Football club are opening there brand new 30,000 seater next year too... Could be a possibilty?
Hillsborough also holds around 39,000 but is about 5-10 mins drive out the city centre.

Also plaing say 3 games at one ground and four at another at 2 grounds in london... West Ham and Chelsea maybe...?

Come on people. It has to take place in a tourist city. I ain't bloody going to Southampton! It has to be far enough away for people to stay the 2 days. No point having it in Sheffield people will travel for their teams game and then go home.

Southampton?

however many football grounds people suggest, it's unlikely to happen, tf. But why do some people keep suggesting the Boleyn? It's a dive. And an unwelcoming dive at that.

travel seems to be the main issue for alot of fans, especially those that dont want to do the whole weekend. didnt the RFL charter a train to Cardiff a few years back? if this could be done again then the RFL could sell tickets at a flat rate, rather than the organised few buying tickets 3 months in advance and everyone else having to pay higher prices. if two trains ran, one from leeds or doncaster etc and one from manchester or somewhere similar then surely that would be a big help. if the trains ran both days ensuring people got their for the whole day of rugby, they could then use their own discretion as to how many matches they saw, but it would be at least 1.

Alot of people on here are saying have it in Sheffield Leeds Manchester etc but I can't see the point that, the whole idea of the Magic Weekend is to have it outside the heartlands like Lancashire and Yorkshire having it in the cities as mentioned above would just be a compromise.

Keep it but take it to a better venue, either back to Cardiff or elsewhere.

The crowds don't matter, it's on the pitch where the game is sold to new fans, and a festival of rugby league with 7 games shown on Sky over the weekend can't be a bad thing.